"Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!"

The staff at El Aguila, in East Harlem, celebrates Cuauhtémoc Blanco's second-half goal. Photograph by David Gendelman.

The second of the three games in the World Cup group stage began two days ago. After the cautious play of many of the opening matches, this round of games promised a much higher level of intensity. A bad result here could spell the end to a team’s World Cup. On Wednesday, we saw the host nation’s defense break down in the second half, leading to a 3-0 Uruguay victory and, more poignantly, the complete loss of hope of the South African team’s supporters as fans filed out before the game’s end and radio stations later pleaded with the populous not to lose interest in the tournament. Earlier yesterday, a severe mental lapse by Nigerian midfielder Sani Kaita led to his being served a red card. Afterward he literally couldn’t bear to show his face, and for several minutes he was so stunned that he couldn’t leave the pitch, either. He just stood there with his sweat-soaked shirt over his face, the damp cloth outlining his shame in Nigerian green. At the time, Nigeria led 1-0, but, as Kaita clearly feared, the ensuing onslaught by its opponent Greece proved too much for his team, and Greece won 2-1. The game left Nigeria in need of a miraculous result in its third and final group match to advance. This is what was at stake as Mexico took the field against France in Polokwane, South Africa, yesterday. The two teams were tied in the Group A standings, and both of them very much wanted a win, to end the day tied with Uruguay for first. At El Aguila, on the corner of 116th Street and Lexington Avenue, in Manhattan’s East Harlem, you could sense the heightened intensity as early as an hour before kickoff. Out front, a three-piece mariachi band in peach suits and sombreros played to a standing crowd of thirty people beneath a canopy colored the green of Mexico. Mexico’s tri-colored flags waved from the doorway. They waved inside, too, and on the two televisions which blared Univision’s pre-game show. A WXTV reporter and cameraman filmed the scene. Little girls made up in traditional Mexican garb ate tacos and drank aguas frescas beside suited businessmen on extended lunch break. At kickoff, the mariachi trio, replaced beneath the canopy by a 65-inch HD television, came indoors, broke into song and then abruptly quit, ditched the sombreros, and joined everyone else in drop-dead focus on the World Cup fate of its nation’s representatives.

I was joined at my table by Teresa Cabrero, the managing director of Diario de México, the largest Spanish-language Mexican newspaper in New York City; the paper's C.E.O., Federico Bracamontes; and nearly every passing stranger on Lexington Avenue as they stuck their heads in our window and asked what the score was. All of us had seen Mexico’s opening match against South Africa, so it came as no surprise when Mexico repeated its first-half performance from that game. Led on this day by the creativity of PSV Eindhoven left back Carlos Salcido, whose bicycle kick in his own end reminded one viewer of the Brazilian great Roberto Carlos, Mexico created many opportunities and delivered on none. Bracamontes complained about this habit of the Mexican team. So had most of the Mexican fans with whom I had watched the first game. So did a Mexican fan I spoke to out front during the first half. It seems that it’s not so much a Mexican habit as a chronic condition.

At halftime, more tacos flowed and cups of aguas frescas were refilled. The 0-0 draw gave comfort to no one, and the conversation seemed to reflect that. We spoke of the Mexican rock band El Tri, one of the country’s biggest musical acts, and its lead singer Alex Lora, whose 26-year-old daughter had been arrested last month on charges of aggravated manslaughter after she was involved in a car accident in which a man died. She was allegedly driving drunk at the time. The story was a big one in Mexico and continues to be. Lora’s daughter currently resides in prison.

When the whistle blew to signal the start of the second half, we put that conversation behind us. It took Mexican coach Javier Aguirre only 10 minutes before he went to his bench and brought in 22-year-old fan favorite and Manchester United striker Javier “Chicharito” Hernández. The crowd at the restaurant cheered, whistled, and screamed out his nickname repeatedly. Seven minutes later, Aguirre brought in Cuauhtémoc Blanco, the old-man striker with whom, as the Mexican soccer expert Azul del Villar told me last week, Chicharito has “good communication.” The restaurant broke into another round of applause—everyone, that is, except Bracamontes. He just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “He’s 37 years old. What can he do now?”

Blanco wasn’t involved two minutes later when captain Rafael Márquez sent a long ball to Chicharito that looked so far offsides that I stopped watching. Another viewer shouted me back to the screen. Chicharito seemed as stunned as I was that there was no whistle, but he was so far in front of the defense that he had time to gather himself, fake the goalie once, dribble around him, and fire into an open net. Goal! El Aguila erupted into pandemonium. The staff behind the counter embraced one another. Arms were raised, people screamed, and a handful of new faces popped in at the window. Univision replayed the call several times throughout the rest of the game. It looked offsides the first time, but with each repeated highlight, the channel’s creative angles seemed to alter that. By game’s end, the play didn’t even look close anymore.

Mexico struck again 15 minutes later when forward Pablo Barrera drew a clear penalty in the box. Blanco took the penalty kick and hit it with such velocity that even though Hugo Lloris, the French goalkeeper, dove in the direction Blanco had kicked the ball, there was no doubt about it: 2-0, Mexico. More pandemonium ensued.

At the final whistle, Mexico had drawn even with Uruguay on points, needing only a draw in its last group match, against Uruguay, to advance. The crowd from outside rushed in. WXTV lined up twenty of them before the camera as they began chanting, “Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!” People ran down an open passage in the middle of the restaurant, then ran back up front, strangers embraced, and a little boy next to me in a Chicharito Mexico jersey cried due to the restaurant’s clamorous din. On screen, France captain Patrice Evra seemed to be doing the same.

It was a gentle reminder that when there’s a winner, there’s always a loser, too. But no one at El Aguila was very much concerned about that.